INTRODUCTION: This video features Laboratory medicine staff and students discussing their studies at RMIT. It includes seated interviews, and various scenes of labs and other study places across RMIT campuses.

AUDIO: Ambient music

TEXT ON SCREEN: Medical Science, Laboratory Medicine degree students spend 40wks working in laboratories around the world as part of their Professional Practice

PROFESSOR DENISE JACKSON SPEAKS: Seventy percent of decisions made by a doctor is based on information provided by medical scientists.

VISUAL: George Hader is seated in a laboratory, talking toward the camera. A caption reads: George Hader, Grade 2 Medical Scientist, Royal Children’s Hospital.

GEORGE HADER SPEAKS: We liaise with doctors and nurses on a constant basis every single day, Providing the services they need to help the patients to survive.

VISUAL: A montage of scenes featuring medical scientists working in a laboratory, with each other and with various machines, is shown, as Denise Jackson’s voice begins speaking.

AUDIO: Music fades out.

DENISE JACKSON SPEAKS: Professional practice program sits between third and fourth year for the laboratory medicine degree at RMIT.

VISUAL: Dianne Tucker is seated in a laboratory, her elbow resting on a microscope desk. She is talking toward the camera. A caption reads: Dianne Tucker, Laboratory Services Quality and Operations Manager, Royal Children’s Hospital.

DIANNE TUCKER SPEAKS: We’ve placed students in a number of laboratories. Whether it be microbiology. haemoatology, bio-chemistry, blood banking.

VISUAL: Emma White seated in a laboratory, in front of a bank of microscopes. She is talking toward the camera. A caption reads: Emma White, Grade 1 Medical Scientist, Austin Health.

EMMA WHITE SPEAKS: I spent 6 months at Osteon Health, working in their biochemistry lab. I also spent 3 months overseas in England.

VISUAL: Screen pans the front entrance of Birmingham Heartlands Hospital from left to right

VISUAL: Maree Tran is seated in a classroom, with desks and computer screens behind her. She is talking toward the camera. A caption reads: Maree Tran, 4th Year Laboratory Medicine student, RMIT University.

MAREE TRAN SPEAKS: With most courses you don't get work-placement at all, so I think it's like a head start compared to other students.

VISUAL: Professor Denise Jackson in her office, intercut with a montage of students and teachers working in a laboratory setting.

PROFESSOR DENISE JACKSON SPEAKS: Students go out to the major teaching hospitals including Royal Children's, Peter MacCallum, Osteon Health and also some private laboratories. They also have an option of an overseas placement including countries such as USA, UK and Sweden.

VISUAL: Emma White in the laboratory, intercut with a montage of students and teachers working in a laboratory setting, working with test tubes and other equipment.

EMMA WHITE SPEAKS:There is only so much that you can learn at a University, as well as how much equipment a University can have.

VISUAL: Dianne Tucker in her laboratory, intercut with a montage of students and teachers working in a laboratory setting.

DIANNE TUCKER SPEAKS: At RMIT they're learning the theory and learning a little bit about the instruments, but when they get into a laboratory they learn about laboratory life, as I like to call it.

VISUAL: Tom Witowski is seated in a classroom labs, talking toward the camera. A caption reads: Tom Witkowski, 4th Year Laboratory Medicine student, RMIT University. As he speaks, there are various shots of microscope slides, and result cards.

TOM WITKOWSKI SPEAKS: I extracted DNA from blood and tissue samples, then processed it and analysed it for mutations and specific genes.

VISUAL: Montage of machines working in a laboratory setting

DIANNE TUCKER SPEAKS: We make sure that they know what they're doing with their instruments and their analysers. And then they get around to testing patient samples and interacting with the laboratory to ensure that we can provide results to the doctors.

VISUAL: Dianne Tucker in her laboratory.

DIANNE TUCKER SPEAKS: The students that we have trained, more often than not, we end up employing those students in our laboratories.

VISUAL: Tom Witowski sitting in his classroom.

TOM WITKOWSKI SPEAKS: It builds you and and makes you feel like you can really do and understand anything, so when you actually come back to uni and do your final year you feel pretty invincible, I suppose.

VISUAL: Maree Tran seated in her classroom.

MAREE TRAN SPEAKS: I reckon the year placement is probably the best thing out of the whole 4 years.

AUDIO: Ambient music fades in.

VISUAL: Emma White seated in a laboratory, in front of a bank of microscopes, intercut with a montage of scenes shoinw students working in a laboratory,

EMMA WHITE SPEAKS: At the end of the year I actually got a job, so that was the real highlight. Without that experience in the lab and them knowing what my potential was, ummm, yeah, priceless.

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